Reader Comments and Retorts

Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.

Is it sad when we turn on our TVs and see that Nolan Ryan or Yogi Berra or Cal Ripken have been able to monetize their personas and former ability? (I'm assuming that Manny's ability is primarily former at this point.)

To me the sad thing is that his career was derailed by drug testing. Yes, he was to blame. But in a just world the policy would not have been in place. The union caved to pressure from a government.

Manny has only himself to blame. If he'd have kept his antisocial behavior under wraps and stayed in the good graces of George Mitchell's employers his PED usage would have continued to be covered up by the league. He knew the risks.

So does the Chinese professional league have teams in both China and Taiwan? What's the deal here?

The Chinese Professional Baseball League is the name of the Taiwan baseball league. Taiwan's official name is the Republic of China, as its government dates back to the Chinese government that existed before all of China except Taiwan was taken over by the Communists.

Mainland China also has a baseball league but it barely qualifies as professional.

To be fair, China's baseball is advancing pretty fast, they have gone from "being easily beaten by college / amateur teams in Taiwan" to "sometimes give Taiwan's national team a run for their money and even pulled off a few stunning upset" in about a decade.

Their baseball league draws like no crowd even by the low low standards (Taiwan's rarely draw much more than 1 to 2 thousand as well, though they use to draw more like 4-5 thousand. but China would count it as a good day to draw a few hundred.)

There is serious talk of trying to merge a league with China to expand the fan base. but it seems unlikely that China will be ready for quite a while unless their government really slam it down as some sort of #1 policy which seems doubtful (Basketball and Soccer remains two most committed team sports. though the former has kinda reached a stagnating point while the later is an epic disaster that is making Taiwan's whole baseball gambling thing looks like a joke in comparison.)

#13 Same with Rickey! He played as long as he could find a team that would give him playing time.

My favorite in that vein is Iron Man Joe McGinnity. Didn't reach the majors until he was 28. Blew his arm out at 38.

Went back to the minors and won another 207 games -- nearly getting another look at the majors at least once (a 2 year run of 59-35 with an era under 2 while pitching 830 innings showed he had pretty much recovered. The problems was that he was 40 and had a recent history of arm problems. He would top 400 innings in a season 1 more time and go over 300 twice as well. Averaged 330 IP for the 6 years after nearly getting that shot). Had 3 more major injuries and just went back, often at a lower level. Finished up at D ball (getting one unsuccessful start in B) at 54.

I don't think he actually retired, just couldn't find a D level team willing to give him a job.

The problem with Taiwan's teams is that the attendance ... the bottom fell out of it since the mid 90s due to...

A. Gambling scandals.

B. Cable TV airing NPB and MLB games (and NBA ), and competing Basketball league that's more popular with younger crowd and especially girls.

C. Most of the stadium were ancient. though a couple new once have gone up.

D. Taiwan's national team regressed internationally for a variety of reasons. (not really talent issue more as commitment issue and that we not longer put as much stock into it anymore. and of course it's also because the US and Japan started putting more stock into them so we stopped beating a bunch of kids and pretended we're like world #2 after Cuba.)

E. Most of the top talent leaving for the US or Japan.

There's a bunch of semi-pro teams . most can give the worst Pro team a run for their money anyway (which would be Last Year's Rhino.. aka the former Shino Bulls) . but the commitment needed to run them is less.

The biggest problem now generally is that with attendance so crap and TV ratings not exactly great, most team are running at a loss and it's a horrible negative cycle where they cut cots and won't go out to sign big names. and the players, paid poorly (the salary floor is about the same as your average 30 year old with a decent job.. except with a much shorter career expectancy ) with very insecure financial future (there are TONS of former players working as construction worker / truck driver... what's worse is that some of them might actually be making more out of those line of work.) have a huge incentive to rig games .

Made worse by that because the pool of Taiwan's player is very small, most player knew each other since they were kids and many are relatives anyway. (most players are from Taiwan's aboriginal decent , and they make up about 1% of Taiwan's population.) it makes it kinda hard to expose other players when everyone is either your cousin / brother / classmate / underclassman etc.

So its a devious cycle, and many of the team operators weren't exactly huge cooperations, Brothers Elephant's owner (Brother's hotel ) .. is just that... it's a single old hotel!. they have been lamblasted in recent years by fan as being cheap but it's obvious that they don't have deep pockets and that they're willing to bit it for so long is commendable. Other team owners are now bigger corperations, especially the 7-11 Lion and the EDA Rhinos (7-11 in Taiwan is like the best in the world by a mile. the company that got the brand name here ended up teaching the original parent 7-11 company of how to run their ####.)

Hopefully with EDA groups making a serious push it can stop the negative cycle and start pushing for a more positive one again.

As for potential league merger, given that even Japan / Korea can't merge I doubt there's any chance between Taiwan and those 2. China's market is super under developed . again, unless we convince the commies to make a very significant effort to promote the sports there it's pretty hopeless for a few more decade at least.

Have any of you ever ordered anything from a CPBL store? I've kind of wanted a Brother Elephants cap for a couple of years, but I'm not sure how to handle a transaction with a foreign website. Will they even ship to the US?

good question, I dunno either, the shipping service is pretty awesome in Taiwan but I'd guess the shipping fee would be pretty horrendous relative to the cost of the product.

I suppose you can write them a mail and ask, I'm pretty sure they are staffed with plenty of folks that can at least read a email. Taiwan's ridiculasly overeducated nowadays. most younger white collar folks are way over qualified.

I'm from and living in Taiwan, though I've never bought from the CPBL online store, but I can easily just buy from a real store and mail I guess.

Throw me a mail at yuhsingchen720@hotmail.com if your interested I guess... I guess i'll try to do my part to make the league here suck a bit less . Certainly if Manny do come over I'd have much more incentive to actually buy tickets.

RollingWave, do you live in Kaohsiung? You'll have to keep us posted on Manny's progress.

I always assumed Brother Elephants were sponsored by the company that makes printers and label-makers. Maybe they found it too expensive to sponsor a team in Japan so they went to Taiwan. It's a hotel? That's odd.

I live in the North. pretty far away from KaoHsiung, but the CPBL's home field thing is very limited, because you know.. Taiwan is the size of like Vermont. (and with even taller mountains!) they play in 6 different stadium all year and the spread is fairly even. I live within a hour of 4 of the 6 stadium and 10 minute to 1, hah.

Melvin Mora, Nelson Figuroa (these two are notable since they were the very few that had a major league career AFTER leaving Taiwan) , Jose Cano (Robbie's dad) and a load more if you count anyone that's had some ML appearance, Jose Lima tried out but didn't sign .

Throw me a mail at yuhsingchen720@hotmail.com if your interested I guess...

Thanks! I'll send you a message once I get home, and have a chance to measure my enormous head.

Some other big league players that have been in the CPBL are.

Melvin Mora, Nelson Figuroa (these two are notable since they were the very few that had a major league career AFTER leaving Taiwan) , Jose Cano (Robbie's dad) and a load more if you count anyone that's had some ML appearance, Jose Lima tried out but didn't sign .

I started rooting for the Brother Elephants because they signed Bronswell Patrick. He didn't stick around for long, though.